Buterin said that the first phase of Ethereum 2.0 is “in some ways simpler than eth1 and in some ways more complex.” Anyway, he believes that the launch will take place this year.
This year, Ethereum Foundation is planning to launch Phase 0 of Ethereum 2.0, the initial stage of the Ethereum network update. The update has been in development for years, but the system has had its issues and its launch has been postponed a few times. On Friday, during a Reddit Ask-Me-Anything session, Ethereum Foundation developer Justin Drake said there could be another delay. According to Drake, the launch of Ethereum 2.0 Phase 0 would probably not take place until the end of 2020. However, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin disagreed with the developer, saying that the launch would happen this year.
Ethereum 2.0 Launch Issues
Ethereum 2.0 (or “Serenity upgrade”) is expected to improve the network’s scalability and stability. According to developers, Ethereum 2.0 will involve sharding to drastically increase network bandwidth and reduce gas costs, making it cheaper to send Ethereum (ETH) tokens and interact with smart contracts. Besides, it may even bring economic changes, as Ethereum 2.0 will support staking nodes and earn Ethereum as passive income.
However, there are some issues that the developers may face. One of the major possible risks could be the high staking requirements as well as the need to freeze your funds for validating the transactions. Another possible risk is that the average user may not understand the staking process. This lack of understanding can possibly create a loss of withdrawal keys or theft.
Commenting on Ethereum 2.0, Justin Drake said that there are several things he would like to see before the launch. Firstly, Drake would like to have a public testnet with more than 3 clients running smoothly for 2-3 months. Secondly, an incentivized “attack net” running for 2-3 months is necessary. Further, he said a bug bounty program similar to bounty.ethereum.org would need to run for 2-3 months.
According to Drake, all the above mentioned cannot happen in the third quarter of this year. He said:
“I’m now inclined to say that the earliest practical date for genesis is something like January 3, 2021.”
Meanwhile, Vitalik Buterin is more optimistic about Ethereum 2.0 launch. In response to Drake, he said:
“Personally, I completely disagree with this and support the launch of the zero phase much earlier than this date, regardless of the degree of readiness.”
He continued:
“Eth2 phase 0 is in some ways simpler than eth1 and in some ways more complex: more complex PoS, but no complicated GPU-oriented PoW; more optimization required, but no complicated VM, etc etc. I’m inclined to say eth2 phase 0 is a little simpler on-net. Also, eth2 is not going to have any critical applications depending on it until phase 1, so the practical risks of breakage are lower (though you could argue the ecosystem as a whole is bigger).”
“So on the whole I see no reason to take more time for the eth2 phase 0 launch cycle than we did for the eth1 launch,” concluded he.
Another developer Danny Ryan agrees with Buterin. He believes that Ethereum 2.0 will launch this year as well.
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